Gustavo Dudamel: a maestro and his magic Simón Bolívar orchestra

Dynamic conductor Gustavo Dudamel, seen here with his Simón Bolívar Youth Symphony Orchestra, will lead the Los Angeles Philharmonic during its residency at the Barbican.
Photograph: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images

He was sitting, half-sitting, standing, bouncing on both feet, goading, correcting and running up the aisle of the Royal Festival Hall to conduct behind the front stalls. If it was no ordinary orchestra rehearsal, then that was because he is no ordinary conductor. Gustavo Dudamel arrived in the UK yesterday with one of the most remarkable stories in classical music - the Simón Bolívar youth orchestra.

It is the orchestra most countries would love to have, a product of a system most countries would love to emulate. What began 34 years ago in a garage in Caracas, Venezuela, became El Sistema.

The System, by which young Venezuelans - most of them poor, many of them often living in drug and crime-related environments - are given intensive classical music education for as much as six afternoons a week. The result is hundreds of youth orchestras and more than a quarter of a million young musicians.

Dudamel, meanwhile, is the conductor everybody wants a piece of. "The most astonishingly gifted conductor I've ever come across," according to the English conductor Simon Rattle. The saviour of classical music, according to others. And still a fresh-faced 28-year-old who this year takes charge of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Yesterday morning Dudamel claimed Tchaikovsky as a Venezuelan and spent two hours putting about 180 of his charges, aged between 16 and 24, through rehearsals before last night's performance of the composer's 4th symphony.

After a break, it was on to Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra. Such was the draw of the event that the hall was almost full with a live feed to even more people in the foyer. Parents had been invited to bring their children and so gripping was the rehearsal that there didn't appear to be a moan or a yawn, or indeed any noise at all, out of them.

It is a big orchestra - "He may have been trying to break a Guinness record for musicians on stage," admitted the Southbank's head of music, Marshall Marcus - and the sound was often thunderous.

There was passion, fun, excitement and it was utterly spellbinding. At one stage Dudamel asked colleagues in the audience how the horns sounded during the opening fanfare and the section was told to move back a bit. Dudamel then darted up the stairs to hear them from the middle of the concert hall. Then he returned, hauled to the stage by his violin-playing concert master, and had the horns move once again.

The Guardian's classical music writer, Tom Service, said: "It was fantastic really, such tremendous energy and you could see the connection between Dudamel and the orchestra. There is an absolute connection between everything he does and everything they play which is miraculous. It was a bit rough around the edges but then it was a rehearsal.

"The biggest thing Dudamel has is that he has been one of them. They've grown up together. They have an understanding of one another."

The musicians are the fourth generation Simón Bolívar youth orchestra and on this tour have performed in Caracas, Houston, Washington and Chicago. On Monday there was an outing on the London Eye before yesterday's rehearsal and concert - sold out 10 months ago - last night.

To add to the pressure, at least six of their teachers were in the audience along with the man Dudamel described as "our soul, our engine," the man who created El Sistema, Jose Antonio Abreu, now 69.

He said it was more than a system, it was a principle, a right to education and "more than anything, a social programme".

Marcus described the morning as "absolutely wonderful - and that was just the rehearsal. It really does show you, in a tangible way, just how powerful this orchestra is." There were cheers and many stood to applaud after the Tchaikovsky rehearsal. "English people don't do that unless they really mean it," said Marcus.

The orchestra last performed in the UK two years ago, at the Royal Albert Hall and Edinburgh, but this is its first UK residency. The Southbank said it expected about 30,000 people to hear the orchestra in the main hall and the Clore Ballroom over the week and Saturday's concert will be streamed live to The Sage in Gateshead.

The big question is, could something similar happen in the UK? There are many who are trying. Last December three pilot areas (West Everton, Lambeth and Norwich) were named for an English government-funded version of El Sistema, In Harmony, which aims to get young people from deprived areas playing classical music. In Scotland, there is Sistema Scotland, which has the Big Noise project and an initiative in the Raploch area of Stirling. This week three symposia will be held looking at the Venezuelan system and how it might work in the UK.

The Southbank Centre, which yesterday launched its full classical music guide for the year ahead, also announced a new partnership with Britain's National Youth Orchestra, its first national youth partner. It will perform its spring concert at the Royal Festival Hall on Sunday.

A system for change

The Fundacion del Estado para el Sistema Nacional de las Orquestas Juveniles e Infantiles de Venezuela, or El Sistema, has changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of young Venezuelans. It has taken them from impoverished barrios and put them in concert halls. The conductor Sir Simon Rattle says: "There is nothing more important in the world of music than what is happening in Venezuela." Look at some classical music and it is grey and dull. El Sistema is all about passion and excitement. It began in 1975 when an economist, Jose Antonio Abreu, founded the system in Caracas from which it spread across Venezuela. In many ways it is simple: give young people, whatever their background, the opportunity to learn, love and play classical music.

• This article was amended on Thursday 16 April 2009. The accents were awry throughout the article above on what we should have styled as the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra. This has been corrected.